My uncle and I sunk our very first boat there... it was a 1973 Skeeter Baron (mind you this was 1986). We were behind the rail road bridge on the trolling motor and high centered a stump that went right thru the hull. A guide out there that past away many years ago (Gerald Roebuck) helped to pull us off that stump. Once we got unstuck, we got passed the rail road bridge, the front deck blew open and it was all I could do to get that thing to the first point on the left and there it sat. We drove to Pittsburgh and bought an 1983 kingfisher, not much better but it worked...

So me and two customers at tied to a stump on the pipeline in Blundell where the creek crosses. It is about this time of year. Cold with a very light south wind blowing.

It is before daylight and we are tying on baits using a flashlight. I tell him to tie on a firetiger Bagley DB3 on one rod and a T-rig big worm on the other.

He gets the crankbait tied on first and sets it down across the back deck with the bait hanging in the water. Then he grabs his other rod and sits down next to me and starts rigging up his T-rig.

We are both sitting there quietly tying on baits and all of a sudden there is a big splash and his rod on the back deck goes shooting off into the lake. The boat has not moved. Neither one of us have moved. It is still dark as night and we both look at each other like What tha heck just happened!!

A fish had apparently grabbed his crankbait floating right beside the boat and jerked his rod off in the pond!! We waited until it was light and started casting all around the area. Never found it.....

Here's another one for ya Rodney:

I caught my first 8 pounder on 12-27-81 on the west end of the pipeline on a 12" black neon worm at 2 am. One week later I took one of my co-workers with me for another whack at them.

He had never night fished before and he showed up at my house about 10 pm wearing a jean jacket with a flannel shirt. I tell him it is going to drop down into the low 30's that night and he tells me it will be okay because he has longjohns on underneath his jeans.

I am wearing all of my cold weather gear plus a 10X jumpsuit. By 4 am he is so cold he is miserable. I am warm & toasty.

He goes to make a cast with my rod & reel and away it goes, off into the pond!! I grab a marker buoy and unwrap the lead weight from around it and toss it into the lake where I thought it went in. I tell him to keep fishing, that we would worry about it once it got daylight.

We fish on until dawn and catch two small fish. I decide it is time to go try to recover my rig so I troll over to my buoy. We tie on slabs and lose them. We tie on Little Georges and lose them too. We lose every jigging spoon in my boat trying to snag my rod & reel.

Finally I tell Clark that we are throwing in the towel and he will just have to replace my rig. He is bummed out.

I grab the marker buoy and start rolling up the line. I can tell it is a little heavier than it should be. I get the lead weight up to the surface and lo & behold, the lead weight has snagged the rod about midway up. Clark was a happy camper.

Well, it's just a lake.(J/K) to many memories to list, me and little brother owned it many times ..

Probably gonna think about my wife's uncle's fish.. the one Mark mentioned above in 1980, the record breaker 38 yr long record.Ya know, I don't know, if Monti was Hot in 1980 when Jimmy broke the long standing record.. I would love to have that mount or either one of his 13+lb fish. I'll talk to Mickie his wife to find out..

My best memory of Monticello was a day in December fishing with Jason Hoffman. My wife was 8months pregnant and was complaining of pains when I got up to leave that morning. She hurt from time to time so neither of us thought it severe enough to skip my fishing trip.

Jason and I ended up tied up on a hump and catching fish practically every few casts. By the time we found this spot half the morning was gone. I get a phone call and my family is telling me they are taking my wife to the hospital for complications and I need to come home. Knowing I’m 3 hours away I tell Jason we need to pack it up soon. I think we were on number 40 and we agree to fish to 50 catches and stop. It took maybe 20 minutes for those last 10. We had 50 fish by 11am and I headed home

I got to leave and come home to my wife in the hospital. She was too early to deliver so they kept her for another 2 weeks but that’s another story.

So me and two customers at tied to a stump on the pipeline in Blundell where the creek crosses. It is about this time of year. Cold with a very light south wind blowing.

It is before daylight and we are tying on baits using a flashlight. I tell him to tie on a firetiger Bagley DB3 on one rod and a T-rig big worm on the other.

He gets the crankbait tied on first and sets it down across the back deck with the bait hanging in the water. Then he grabs his other rod and sits down next to me and starts rigging up his T-rig.

We are both sitting there quietly tying on baits and all of a sudden there is a big splash and his rod on the back deck goes shooting off into the lake. The boat has not moved. Neither one of us have moved. It is still dark as night and we both look at each other like What tha heck just happened!!

A fish had apparently grabbed his crankbait floating right beside the boat and jerked his rod off in the pond!! We waited until it was light and started casting all around the area. Never found it.....

Here's another one for ya Rodney:

I caught my first 8 pounder on 12-27-81 on the west end of the pipeline on a 12" black neon worm at 2 am. One week later I took one of my co-workers with me for another whack at them.

He had never night fished before and he showed up at my house about 10 pm wearing a jean jacket with a flannel shirt. I tell him it is going to drop down into the low 30's that night and he tells me it will be okay because he has longjohns on underneath his jeans.

I am wearing all of my cold weather gear plus a 10X jumpsuit. By 4 am he is so cold he is miserable. I am warm & toasty.

He goes to make a cast with my rod & reel and away it goes, off into the pond!! I grab a marker buoy and unwrap the lead weight from around it and toss it into the lake where I thought it went in. I tell him to keep fishing, that we would worry about it once it got daylight.

We fish on until dawn and catch two small fish. I decide it is time to go try to recover my rig so I troll over to my buoy. We tie on slabs and lose them. We tie on Little Georges and lose them too. We lose every jigging spoon in my boat trying to snag my rod & reel.

Finally I tell Clark that we are throwing in the towel and he will just have to replace my rig. He is bummed out.

I grab the marker buoy and start rolling up the line. I can tell it is a little heavier than it should be. I get the lead weight up to the surface and lo & behold, the lead weight has snagged the rod about midway up. Clark was a happy camper.

( I caught my first 8 pounder on 12-27-81 )

Wow, that's the same year Lakeview HS opened. Getting deep in here.

I am a Senager. (Senior teenager) I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 50 years later. I don't have to go to school or work. I get an allowance every month. I don't have a curfew, I have a drivers license,a PU truck and I have a bass boat.

Not realizing for years that you could fish Monticello in the daytime, My brother and friends always wanted to fish at night in the dead of winter. Before the days of gps having to navigate by wind direction due to fog. One afternoon, my brother says let’s go and I say I don’t think I can make it, running a pretty high fever not feeling good at all, he throws out the challenge of “come you big wussy”, so off we go. Somewhere around 2 a.m. I tell him I’m done and lay done in the bottom of the boat and go fast asleep. Pulling the all night, all day marathon and trying to drive back to Dallas without falling asleep. Almost 40 years of fishing history, great memories.